Title: Thursday
By: Yukito Kinomoto
Rating: PG some swearing nothing major
Summary: Grissom is dead. Warrick shot him. Some short thoughts.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Not that I'd claim owning Ecklie if you paid me.
Feedback: Yes please grissom500@yahoo.com
Grissom was dead. He had been shot through the stomach and had died long before the ambulance had arrived.
Friendly fire had never been so painful. It had been a stupid mistake that had cost one man his life and one so much more.
She had been there, had held is head in her lap, as he took his last, blood choked gasp. The scene was clear in her mind as she sat at his desk, staring in grief-stricken amusement at the Big
Mouth Billy Bass above the door. So unpredictable, so typically Grissom.
Sara hadn't really had the chance to cry yet, it didn't seem right somehow. It was hard to comprehend the depth and breadth of the immense pain that encompassed every movement in the headquarters of CSI.
Day shift was working overtime for them, for this night and in three days for – Sara swallowed hard – for the funeral.
Warrick had pulled the trigger. He had thought Grissom was the perp. They had all forgotten, from time to time that Girssom still couldn't hear quiet, low sounds. About a year ago, he had an operation to remedy what had become the almost total hearing loss that the Otosclerosis had caused.
"Gris, Gris, that you?"
No answer from the figure bent in the shadows. Suddenly the figure stood and began toward Warrick.
"Hi, War-" Was as far as he got. He recognized the voice far too late.
The look on his face was terrible. It was burned in Warrick's memory for all of time. In the depths of blue eyes it was plain from the beginning that he was a dead man. He didn't fall right away.
"Warrick, what did you do?!" Sara's voice was harsh in his ears. "Oh my God! You shot him! Grissom?!"
His mouth was open and he gasped slightly, his lips moving gently with each desperate search for air that was as lost cause anyway.
"Gris, I'm sorry."
He stared at Warrick in wide-eyed disbelief. Finally his knees gave way and he fell into Warrick's outstretched arms that were open in apology, but only caught pain.
"Holy shit. Sara dial 9-1-1."
He was half kneeling with Grissom and she took him from Warrick's arms.
"Radio it in, it's faster."
Somehow, Grissom was still aware.
"Warrick," he rasped, "not your fault."
He looked Sara in the eye and gave her a smile; a lopsided, painful smile. Then the struggle that is a violent death took hold. After several, painfully hard gasps he shuttered and was gone.
She just sat there, her hands over her mouth and Warrick – there are no words to describe the what he was feeling with out the risk of trivializing the wretchedness and true emotion he had on his heart.
He radioed it in, but never could remember exactly what he said.
It didn't really matter.
Nick and Greg were the only two who had cried right away. Sara pressed her hands into her eyes as she remembered…
They were in the break room, she could see them through the glass, having a good natured argument about something that would mean nothing in about ten seconds. She just stood in the doorway and waited for them to notice her. She was fairly certain that her face would reveal more that the words she had to say.
"Nick, you are speaking dumb my friend. Pink over The Who any day."
Nick shook his head with that I-don't-think-so smile on his face. On the verge of a reply, he saw Sara.
"Sara what's wrong?"
Say it girl and say it strait.
"Grissom's dead."
This brought Greg's full attention up to her.
Nick looked rather stupid.
Don't make this hard Nicky.
He tried to speak, but no words escaped. He finally managed a shaky, "How?"
It was disturbingly easy to say, "Warrick shot him by accident. DOA."
Nick closed his eyes, "Oh my God." He hung his head and sobbed. She moved forward and let him cry into her brown hair.
Over his shoulder, Greg was plainly visible. His eyes too, were closed in an effort to stem the flow of tears; it wasn't working very well.
Sara had broken the embrace and had fled to HIS office. And so there she sat, completely alone. Warrick was at the police station and God only knew were the fuck Catherine was, or if she even knew.
He'd never make one of his small jokes again. Never again spout a quote, never get a flash of brilliance on a case. Never make one of his cryptic riddles. Never smile that not-quite smile. Never breathe, or talk, or see again.
Sara's resolve crumbled. She lay her head on his desk and bawled. Suddenly all the things she had ever confronted him about, all their fights seemed ridiculous and not so important. Not at all. She missed him already and he'd only been gone an hour and a half.
She finally calmed herself down long enough to look for a tissue. There being none on the desk or anywhere in plain sight, she began to look through his desk.
She absently wondered how many tissues Grissom had used lately. Probably not many.
Her search was fast, but halted at the bottom of one of the side drawers.
Five pictures.
The top one was Grissom and Warrick on a roller coaster, both obviously screaming, but smiling as well.
Next was a color copy of a black and white picture that had appeared in the newspaper, Grissom and Greg.
Then Grissom and Nick, she didn't know who took it, why or when, but it was in the CSI building.
The last two were older.
Catherine and Grissom, obviously at some convention, smiling pleasantly.
And the last started her tears up again. He had kept the damn thing. All the bitching about getting it taken and he had kept it. I was Grissom and her, the first time they had met. There were various other students, who she barely recognized, around him as well, but his arm was over HER shoulder and he wore a genuine half smile, one with teeth (see cover of People Magazine).
Oh, she missed him.
"Sara?"
She jumped and looked up to find Ecklie two steps away from the desk, with a strange look on his face.
"I am so sorry." He was sincere, very sincere, "I thought after Holly, this unit had had enough pain for awhile. But Sara, this will sound really hollow right now and the pain never goes away, but Gil wouldn't want you guys to be too sad about this. He was a good guy, just remember that."
She nodded numbly, even Grissom's enemies hadn't hated him.
He turned to leave, but stopped at the door, "I've requested the Sheriff give his job to Catherine or Brown." He disappeared and Sara totally broke down.
She had never liked Thursdays.
End.